Programmer and blogger Matt Nowack tasked himself with learning seven new things of varying degrees of complexity last October, and just a few months later, he's come a long way and learned one very important lesson.

Specifically, Nowack wanted to learn more about the version control system git, the Ruby programming language, the Ruby on Rails web development framework, blogging, a PHP database layer called Prosper, hosting his own domain, and testing software. It's all rather tech-focused fare, but his takeaway applies to any of us.

If there is one key thing I could convey to anyone reading this is to hustle. You will never be prepared for the things you are capable of doing. You will achieve your greatest accomplishments not by building up a grand framework of skill and then deftly creating something glorious, but by starting small and persevering in making it better and better. It is never an easy road and you will gain a grand framework of skills, but you have to push your boundaries to grow.

I would love to put a triumphant "I'm just so damned smart and talented and handsome" paragraph here, but that's not the case. I just steeped myself in this stuff, I worked in git daily, I read about it, watched screencasts, I bought agile web development in rails, I got design patterns in ruby, I hustled. And you can do it too, take the first step today.